Work in Progress

After completing the painting with the Alum mordant, the cotton textile is boiled in alizarin to yield the blood-red colour. Various shades of red are created by mixing the alizarin with iron filing.

Although white, blood red and black alone were used in the traditional form of the Mata Ni Pachedi, the craftspersons have now added other colours to their vocabulary. With the exception of indigo rapid dyes, all other colours used are usually natural dyes. Thus, red is extracted from madder/ manjeeth; green from henna; brown from potassium dichromate, kesuda flowers, and tea; grey from copper; chocolate brown by combining the solution for red and black; orange from the kesuda flower; yellow from haldi/ turmeric.